Lawrence's portrait depicts the rising statesman next to a bas-relief of his hero, Demosthenes, the great Athenian orator. The image was engraved in 1801 when he was Foreign Secretary and about to negotiate the Peace of Amiens (1802). Succeeding his father as Lord Liverpool in 1808, he strengthened the British economy and encouraged the liberal policies of Canning, Huskisson and Peel. But he was also notorious for passing the Six Acts (1819), a series of unpopular 'gagging acts' which limited personal freedom and controlled the chance of radical uprising.

Current affairs

Whig MP Charles Grey enters a motion for parliamentary reform but is defeated in the House of Commons.

Art and science

Radical philosopher William Godwin publishes Political Justice, an inflamatory document that promoted rational anarchism. This crystallised a wider feeling that a new era of world peace and progress was beginning.Sir William Beechey is appointed Portrait Painter to her Majesty, Queen Charlotte.

International

Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette are executed and the Reign of Terror begins.France declares war on Britain, Holland and then Spain. William Pitt addresses the House of Commons and Britain hesitantly joins the first coalition of anti-revolutionary European states to oppose the French threat.Attack on Corsica in which Captain Horatio Nelson loses an eye.

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